“I want the both of you to avoid fighting the enemy.”

The planning of the attack was already mostly finished when Kain gave his twin children their instructions. Naturally, they were not too thrilled to be told to, effectively, wait in the rear and watch the show without interfering. They were the children of him and his wife, alright; always itching for a fight and practically begging to be let off the leash.

“Father, we can handle ourselves quite well. Neither I nor my brother believe that we have anything to worry about. They are mere mobs, while we are the stars of the show; the vast difference between their capabilities and our own is as clear as night and day! We can certainly defeat them alongside the main forces, but we did not insist on coming here just to be told to watch the battle from far away.”

“Elizabeth, I understand the desires that you and your brother have. Trust me when I say that you will get your time to shine, just not now. Have patience; there is a much bigger battle on the horizon, and it is a battle where your skills can bring a greater glory to the both of you. For now, however, I need you to sit back and observe.”

“But why?!” Elizabeth cried, going full puppy-dog eyes to try and sway her father.

“Allow me to explain.”

A Neo Albion general stepped up to try and reason with his ruler’s children.

“I believe that what our Lord wants is for you to see how a battle plays out from a different vantage point, a distant yet not too distant one, so that when the time comes for you both to enter combat you can have an appreciation for the true size of said fight. I find it obvious that his intention is to let you witness the violence of a battle without being caught up in it, all so that you may better understand the scale and complexity of combat while also seeing what your allies are capable of.”

Raziel stroked his chin as if he, the kid who was not even close to reaching puberty, had a beard.

“I see.” He said. “By removing us from this fight, we can see the horrors of war from a detached viewpoint and come to our own conclusions about how to engage in war and the merits and demerits of both our own forces and those of our foes. And, father, I expect this will not be the only time we are forbidden from fighting in this war?”

Kain nodded.

“Yes. Unless the situation drastically changes, I will be forbidding you both from entering combat in any capacity for at least the next three battles. I want you to witness the war and decide for yourselves how to fight it. If I feel you have reached an understanding faster than I expected, I will allow you to assist in small skirmishes. You are nowhere near adulthood, and I am not so terrible a parent as to have my pre-teen children fight large-scale or even medium-scale battles for our country. At most you can assume that you will be fighting alongside those who will protect you, but you are both forbidden from entering melee range even when you are allowed to fight. For all of your knowledge and skill, you are still untested and inexperienced, and I will not risk your safety in such a way.”

The twins nodded dejectedly, accepting that they would not be able to fight ‘up close and personal’, and the planning continued.

…

It had been four days since the battles between the two forces had resumed. The air was cold enough that those not accustomed to it would be in pain with every breath, but while the Ruskian forces had long since adapted to the dangerously low temperatures, the Darksol-aligned forces had not. To offset this, the ‘Think Tank’ had designed new winter gear that used magic to artificially heat the armor and clothing of the wearer along with a skull-like helmet that allowed the wearer to breathe normally in extremely cold environs without worrying about the painful chill.

Thus, the motley crew of Ruskian forces were fighting a heavily armored and well-organized army of men and women covered head to toe in black armor with black metal skulls for faces. If there was a comparison to be made with another fantasy world it would be that these mortal men of the Darksol Empire looked like the Knights of Morr from Warhammer Fantasy. While these forces actually spoke and made noise, their terrifying visage and imposing presence had long since cut deeply into the psyche of the opposing Ruskian forces.

As Kain had made it perfectly clear, his children had watched each day’s battle and slowly grew accustomed to seeing men and beast carved open, riddled with ranged fire or run through. As Kain had expected, his children were not able to deal with the violence and savagery of warfare as they had thought they would. The first three days saw them both lose their lunch multiple times as they saw men ripped apart, ‘dis-armed’ and/ or ‘de-feet-ed’. By this day, the fourth day, they were getting better at dealing with the gore, but they were still squeamish and occasionally turned away when men and women were killed or maimed in particularly brutal ways.

Kain empathized with them, he really did. He came into this world controlled in part by a monster with a penchant for violence and cruelty. In fact, if it were not for that more dark and twisted side of him constantly having an effect on his mind, he might not have done so many terrible things. To be brutally honest, he probably would not have been able to work up the courage and malice needed to reestablish Darksol as the power that it had become without that darker side of his. These kids of his, despite likely having some traces of Earthling in them based on their knowledge of decidedly Earthly memes, had likely never seen such violence and carnage. It was either that, or they had seen it and were acting. Either way, he had to make sure that, when the time came to send them into the fray that they would be more than ready to walk through the blood and gore with not the slightest bit of concern in their minds.

Kain decided to wait a few more days, and a few more battles, until he was certain that they had become more desensitized to the violence of war. It was a cruel lesson, but one that needed to be taught sooner rather than later. Darksol was still the enemy of a ‘great’ power, and as a result his children, his heirs, needed to be ready in the event that shit went sideways while he wasn’t around to protect them. Despite being the ruler of Death and Undeath, Kain had no delusions about being perfectly immortal. Everything dies sooner or later, and Kain wanted to secure his legacy before such an unfortune twist of fate occurred.

His children would have to grow up quickly, or risk growing up even faster than that and without guidance.